Power distribution arrangements of the above general type are used in aircraft to distribute the electrical energy or power available in the power supply system to the individual power consuming devices. For reasons of safety and redundancy, a plurality of independent power sources are provided and are connected to individual power line strands. Furthermore, the various power consuming devices are permanently or fixedly allocated and connected to particular ones of the power sources through the branched cabling of the power supply system, according to a generally typical manner of power distribution.
In the known systems, if one branch of the power supply fails, for example due to failure of the power source connected to this branch or failure of the branch conductor itself, then the power supply to all power consuming devices connected to this branch will be interrupted. Even though the other power sources and power distribution branches continue functioning due to the above described redundancy, if one power distribution branch fails then all devices connected to that branch will fail. Even critical devices connected to the failing branch will lose their supply of power and will be shut down, even though the remaining power available in the other power distribution branches is not being fully utilized by the remaining connected power consuming devices. It can also occur that an important power consuming device is shut down due to lack of power while a relatively unimportant power consuming device is still being supplied with electrical power through a properly functioning power distribution branch.